Smart materials

Zepler Institute researchers have developed functional inks that can be printed onto flexible substrates such as textiles and low temperature plastics.

Printing electronic circuits onto textiles is a huge challenge. Not only do the inks have to be conductive, elastic and flexible, they also have to survive washing. At the Zepler Institute, chemists and electronics engineers are working together to find solutions to these problems.

Fabricating the watch, which is flexible and comfortable to wear, involved creating new, low-temperature inks and functional materials and then printing six different layers with high precision. The novel inks developed during the project are now being sold through a spin-out company, Smart Fabric Inks, and researchers are exploring a variety of new applications for printed electronics, such as wearable medical sensors, solar cells on yacht sails and illuminated removable building facades and displays.

Related links

“SPHERE is a £12M EPSRC project which collaborates with the Zepler Institute on smart materials that harvest energy for wearable health devices. Its expertise and fabrication capability is vital to our research.”